Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 64

Gallows Humor

One thing I like about the Middle East is its pitch black sense of humor.

Here's an example from a New York Times piece about Yemen, via the Happy Arab News Service.

Beneath the familiar Arab iconography, like pictures of the president that hang in every shop, there is a wildness about the place, a feeling [...:]

I'm Glad I Don't Live in Washington

Believe it or not, what Reuel Marc Gerecht reports about frank discussions of Islam in the Middle East is true:

Throughout the greater Middle East, frank discussions about Islam are easier to have than they are in Washington, D.C.—especially among government officials. Ask someone in the Obama administration about jihad and, unless the official knows the [...:]

Israel Derangement Syndrome in Spain

Israel is the only country in the entire Middle East where it's not a crime to be gay, yet the organizers of the gay pride festival in Madrid forbade the municipality of Tel Aviv from sponsoring the float it had planned.

The Age of the Zipped Lip

Paul Berman takes the thesis of his outstanding new book, The Flight of the Intellectuals, to the pages of the Wall Street Journal and dubs the age we live in that of the Zipped Lip.

"You are not," he writes, "supposed to observe that Islamism is a modern, instead of an ancient, political tendency, which arose [...:]

"Hussein" Has Nothing to Do With It

President Barack Obama agreed to be interviewed by Israel's Channel 2, and at one point he came across like a peevish and blinkered man who hasn't a clue how others see him or how the Middle East works.

During the interview Wednesday, when confronted with the anxiety that some Israelis feel toward him, Obama said that [...:]

Web Site Move

I recently announced that this Web site will be moving to Pajamas Media. We still have a few technical database issues to iron out before going live, and once that happens you should be automatically re-directed from here to there.

What Arabs Think of The Persian Bomb

Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic recently interviewed the ambassador from the United Arab Emirates about the threat to Arabs from Iran's nuclear weapons program.

A number of readers emailed Goldberg in surprise, but what the ambassador said isn't new. It's the stock response from several Sunni Arab governments, though delivered a little more desperately and [...:]

Octavia Nasr Explains Herself

And she responded exactly as I expected she would:

My tweet was short: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot. #Lebanon"

Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment [...:]

CNN Editor Mourns and Respects a Promoter of "Resistance" and Terror

Daniel Halper at the Weekly Standard found a doozy of a Twitter post on the Fourth of July by Octavia Nasr, CNN's senior editor of Mideast Affairs. "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah," she wrote. "One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."

I know enough about Fadlallah, who died at [...:]

IDF Flash Mob in Hebron

I guess these guys are going to get into trouble, but this is a lot better for Israeli PR than Operation Cast Lead or the Mavi Marmara incident.